An FCC Lifeline plan "jeopardizes over 12 million low-income Americans' access to telephone services," and "threatens" program support for broadband access, said a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People "action alert" posted Friday in docket 11-42. Asking people to file comments in the proceeding, the NAACP provided a sample letter urging the FCC to reject "draconian proposals." Comments are due Wednesday and replies Feb. 23 on a Further NPRM and notice of inquiry adopted Nov. 16 and released in a Dec. 1 text with an order (see 1712010042) and 1711160021). The National Hispanic Media Coalition asked the FCC for an eight-week comment extension. It "would be prudent" to delay the due dates, "given the enormous impact that this proceeding could have on the Lifeline program and individuals who rely on the program for their vital communications needs, and in particular the millions of Americans still reeling from hurricanes in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands who are struggling to connect to basic necessities like water and electricity, let alone communications services," said an NHMC motion posted Thursday.

The FCC net neutrality repeal "is well crafted" and "should fare well" in court, said Raymond James analyst Frank Louthan in an investor note Thursday after hosting a telecom policy symposium in Washington. He said judges gave the prior FCC "significant" deference on its decisions, and "the current FCC should be given the same to adjust the rules." Even if a Congressional Review Act resolution to disapprove the current FCC order passes the Senate, it's unlikely to pass the House or be signed into law by President Donald Trump, Louthan wrote. "[T]he CRA actions and future similar stunts are unlikely to be effective and the legal appeal should be the final word in this chapter," he said. "The longer-term impact over the net neutrality fight is how it poisons the well for other potential telecom legislation in Congress for the foreseeable future." Louthan was skeptical of "meaningful infrastructure investment" taking place this year, despite FCC and congressional efforts. Democratic and Republican lawmakers "could serve the public if they actually worked together to forge a net neutrality compromise," blogged CCMI telecom consultant Andrew Regitsky, who also doubted CRA disapproval. "However, it should be pretty clear to most Americans by now that members of both political parties care mostly about being re-elected and getting majorities for their party. Any public benefits that arise during this self-serving process appear purely coincidental." Web "giants" are trying to preserve their regulatory advantage by joining, through the Internet Association, legal challenges to the FCC order, blogged Free State Foundation senior fellow Theodore Bolema. "Regardless of how much Internet Association members like Google and Amazon may claim they want to bring back 'net neutrality' to protect consumers, a significant impact of their actions is to try to re-impose regulation to protect themselves from ISP competition," he wrote. "If they succeed, the result will be to keep more stringent regulations on their ISP competitors. To the extent that regulation of providers of services in the Internet ecosystem is needed, it at least should be a somewhat uniform enforcement regime, not one so disparate that ISPs are regulated in a much more heavy-handed manner than Internet web giants."

Form letters and fraudulent filings undermined the public comment process in the FCC net neutrality rulemaking (see 1708030054), said Jack Karsten and Darrell West, research analyst and vice president at the Center for Technology and Innovation. "Agencies do not base their decisions on the number of comments arguing for or against a rule," they blogged for the Brookings Institution Thursday. A "high number of false comments may lead agencies to discount public comments altogether. The same digital tools that empower concerned citizens also enables individuals and groups to flood the system with fabricated comments." They suggested requiring "commenters to verify their identity, or at least verify they are human." Another approach would automate the search for spam comments, "pitting spam bots against spam filters," they wrote. "However, the filtering out of fraudulent comments should [not be] used [to] discourage authentic commentary from interested individuals. Creating a universal, easy-to-use interface for public comments would increase participation without diminishing the quality of comments."

The FCC Wireless Bureau approved transfer of spectrum licenses from Straight Path Spectrum to Verizon, giving the buyer a larger toehold in the high-frequency spectrum important to 5G. The Competitive Carriers Association sought to block the deal (see 1708110051). The licenses include 735 millimeter wave spectrum licenses in the 39 GHz band, 133 licenses in the local multipoint distribution service bands at 28, 29 and 31 GHz, nine common carrier point-to-point microwave licenses and one nonexclusive nationwide license in the 3650-3700 MHz band. Verizon got Straight Path and the licenses last year after a bidding war with AT&T and needed approval for the license transfers (see 1705170012). “After carefully evaluating the likely public interest effects of the proposed transfer, we find that the likelihood of any public interest harms arising from the transfer is low,” said the order, released Thursday. “Verizon’s post-transaction spectrum holdings across the 28 GHz and 39 GHz bands do not raise particular competitive concerns in light of the current state of the marketplace as well as the recent availability of additional millimeter wave (mmW) spectrum.”

Neustar knocked the latest local number portability administrator transition status report of North American Portability Management and its transition oversight manager (TOM), PwC (see 1801020042). The "report once again fails to inform stakeholders of key elements of transition readiness and the potential for what is now imminent consumer service disruption," said a letter filed Wednesday in FCC docket 09-109 by Neustar, which is handing off LNPA functions to iconectiv (Telcordia). Neustar expressed "concerns over (1) development and testing delays with iconectiv’s Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC) and the lack of transparency surrounding this issue, and (2) the lack of an agreed-upon, viable contingency rollback that will restore NPAC service with Neustar’s platform or personnel should the new system fail." Due to the TOM’s "failure to establish a viable contingency rollback plan, there is no path back to a stable platform for consumers in the affected states if rollout does not go as planned," Neustar said: "The TOM’s long lack of transparency in communicating with the public calls into question the veracity and completeness of the current and most recent reports. ... [C]onsidering the growing list of stark discrepancies between industry best practices (as well as early iconectiv commitments) and the current reality, it is apparent that the impending launch of a newly-developed NPAC platform presents significant risks that are not being acknowledged." Neustar said only three months of industry testing were allocated for a new iconectiv system after an original plan called for a year. It said that in conjunction with NAPM's schedule, it's terminating all aspects of its NPAC service in the Southeast region on April 8 as iconectiv launches its platform, "and there will be no means to restore NPAC service with Neustar's platform or personnel." NAPM didn't comment (transition page here).

Parties petitioning the Supreme Court to undo the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's overturn of the FCC's junk fax rule would enjoy "limited practical consequences" from a decision in their favor, the agency told the high court in a docket 17-351 filing Tuesday. That day was the deadline for responses to the petition for writ of certiorari. The FCC said the 2017 appellate court decision (see 1703310018) leaves open the possibility the agency could put forward the same junk fax rule under a different area of statutory authority. The FCC also said there's no merit to the petitioners' argument that there's a circuit court conflict over how to apply Chevron court deference to administrative actions in cases where Congress hasn't explicitly given power to or withheld it from an agency. In a separate brief in opposition, a group of private respondents -- primarily healthcare businesses -- said the appellate court made "a straightforward statutory-interpretation decision" and review of its decision wouldn't offer real benefit to the FCC or public since the agency hasn't suggested regulating faxed communications is high on its agenda. The private respondents said the petitioners -- who want to revive the junk fax rule to pursue Telephone Consumer Protection Act statutory damages against the respondents -- likely wouldn't benefit anyway since the FCC waived retrospective application of its rule. Counsel for the petitioners didn't comment Wednesday.

Consumer groups said the FCC shouldn't trigger a court lottery, to determine the venue for hearing challenges to the agency's recent net neutrality repeal, based on protective petitions the groups (and others) filed Tuesday in different federal circuits (see 1801160055). Free Press, New America's Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge urged the commission "not to forward these petitions or any other premature petitions it receives, to the Multidistrict Litigation ('MDL') panel for inclusion in the lottery until ten days after Federal Register publication," said a letter, released Wednesday, their counsel wrote the agency. They recognized the FCC specified the judicial review timetable wouldn't begin until Federal Register publication of a summary of the commission's ruling and orders undoing net neutrality regulation, but they said premature petitions could still be filed. "We thus have filed the petitions in an abundance of caution to protect our rights," said their letter. OTI, Public Knowledge, state attorneys general and Mozilla filed petitions for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Free Press filed a petition in the 1st Circuit. Santa Clara County, California, filed a petition in the 9th Circuit. Various parties told us they weren't aware of any other petitions but said the FCC was in the best position to know, since petitioners are supposed to notify the agency. The agency didn't comment. Mozilla counsel Markham Erickson of Steptoe & Johnson said the FCC's path for dealing with the initial petitions should be clear soon: “I expect to know within days whether the FCC certifies the petitions to the multidistrict lottery.” An agency spokesman confirmed that FR publication of the item summary, not the effective date, will start the period for filing petitions for review in court and petitions for reconsideration at the commission, but declined comment on timing.

Intelsat and Intel are continuing to press for an NPRM that would that would open parts of the C-band to terrestrial 5G operations, said an FCC docket 17-183 ex parte filing posted Tuesday on a meeting with an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai. The companies have talked with an array of commissioners about the proposal (see 1801090043).

Calendar and other corrections: The date of an FCBA Mass Media and Video Programming and Distribution committees brown bag lunch with the FCC's eighth-floor media aides is Feb. 13 ... The date of an FCBA CLE on 5G is Feb. 21. See also https://communicationsdaily.com/calendar?y=2018&m=2 ... Networks have until 30 days after the nonbroadcast network ranking public notice is published in the Federal Register to seek an exemption from the FCC’s ranking and video description requirements (see 1801120024).

New York City needs to be able to attach images to wireless emergency alerts it sends to the public, said Police Commissioner James O’Neill in a letter posted Tuesday by the FCC in docket 15-91. O’Neil noted that in September 2016 when the New York Police Department got a photo of Ahmad Rahimi, later convicted of guilty of eight federal charges Monday in connection with a September 2016 bombing in Chelsea, it had to send out an alert advising the public to check the media for the image. “We cannot continue rely on the public taking this extra step,” he said. Microsoft said additional WEA requirements could have some effect on how smartphones operate. “Microsoft has not performed device testing but expects that the addition of an additional data page to a wireless emergency alert to accommodate polygon geocoordinates should impose a minimal impact on device performance and message delivery latency,” the company filed. “The potential for increased alert delivery latency or device performance degradation (specifically, battery drain) would be more likely to occur with a significantly greater number of polygon coordinates, due to the increased magnitude of calculations that the operating system would be required to perform.” Commissioners are scheduled to vote a draft order Jan. 30 (see 1801090050).